Google buys 200+ more patents from IBM

Google has bought itself a couple hundred more patents to beef up its portfolio. SEO by the Sea reports that the search giant has purchased 188 granted patents and 29 patent pending applications from IBM. The purchase was completed on Dec. 30, 2011 and gives Google access to technologies on a broad range of topics from mobile phones to blade servers to video conferencing.

We don’t know what Google paid for these patents or if they’re being used for research or legal defense, but this patent grab merely bookends a year of huge patent purchases for Google. After losing 6,000 patents in a multibillion dollar Nortel patent auction in June, the company went on a shopping spree, buying 1030 IBM patents in July, followed by a the announced $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola which will give it 17,000 more patents, and another IBM patent purchase in September, which added an additional 1023 patents. Google has not been playing around. The big patent buys aren’t unjustified. Android manufacturers have been targeted by Microsoft and Apple in a number of cases. The incumbent operating system creators claim that Android violates dozens of their patents. Microsoft, in particular, has employed tactics that, from afar, resemble those of the mafia. The Redmond company has pressured most major Android vendors into paying $5-$15 patent royalties for each device they sell.